Is Android still open now that Google has postponed the source code release of Honeycomb, version 3.0 of the mobile operating system? I've been reading a whole boatload of articles and blog posts on the web claiming Android is no longer open, but it seems like very few people seem to actually understand what 'open' really means when it comes to the GPL and the Apache license. Here's a short primer.

Isn't this all because Google wants to prevent fragmentation by keeping the source slightly closed ?

Interresting enough it is the device builders/telecom providers which want to differentiate.

I don't think it's fragmentation/differentiation, so much as the quality of products being associated with the Android brand - not dissimilar to Apple's attitude towards running MacOS on non-Apple hardware.

For the time being, it looks like Google's approach is to limit who they supply the newer versions of Android to, so that each product released with 3.0 is a tested and supported configuration. So for better or worse, no more cheap Android tablets from obscure manufacturers that even Google hasn't heard of...